This time I wanted to talk about something i find to be very interesting.

A couple of months ago i got to do a photo shoot for a new company, Gumelo. Created by three young entrepreneurs who developed a really curious product. It’s called EcoGumelo and it represents a fun new way of actually bring something to life and watch it grow, in this case it’s mushrooms I’m talking about, Gourmet Mushrooms.

The way it works is simple, you get a package, open it and just spray it twice a day with clean water. Then you just watch it grow, and it grows so fast you can almost see it get bigger by the minute. It’s almost scary! 😉

They were kind enough to give me a couple of packages to try it for myself, and after they grew and I cooked them, they were delicious!

The photo shoot itself was one of the must fun ones for me, shooting three young people, full of ideas and in a casual environment, with a couple of beers from time to time. 🙂

Here you can see some select photos:

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Please spare some time to get to know what Gumelo is all about in their official website HERE!

The other day I went to an exhibition opening of a friend and great artist David Rosado, who inaugurated his recent exposition in Galeria Arte Periférica, in CCB, Lisbon. His work is vastly influenced by the cinema culture, often we can find allegories from the film industry mixed and invaded by cartoon figures and/or animals, creating this way a complex mosaic in each canvas that tells its own story, independent from each of the individual elements that compose them.

I loved this last exhibition, as it offered a duality between a dark mood, inspired in cult cinema scenes, portrayed in greyish and dark tones, and nature and/or cartoon elements that surprisingly inflict a dichotomy between fear and playfulness.

A little info about David:

“Completing a degree in Fine Arts at the University of Évora in 2004, Painting /Media. Began to show his work in 1996 at the Palacio D. Manuel Evora. His solo exhibitions include: 2011 Michael Lyons Wier Gallery (NY) exposure”BEAST” Hohle 2010, “Nogo (project-room for architecture, contemporary art &experimental film), March 18, Lisbon. The Rebirth of the Lazarus (Peter Serrenho gallery, Lisbon, 2009), High Speed (Carlos Carvalho Zoom Contemporary Art, Lisbon 2008), De Profundis (Blow gallery, Lisbon, 2007). In relation to the exhibitions we can mention those in the Palace Galveias at PrizeAriane de Rothschild, with attribution 3rd place (Lisbon, 2007), the gallery Voghera11, (Roland the Butcher Boy, Milan, Italy, 2009), (Porno Start, Milan, Italy, 2009), the gallery Pedro Torres (Red, Logroño, Spain, 2008) “Museum of Oblivion ‘Exhibition at the Fine Arts National Society of Lisbon, and their participation in the various editions of the contemporary art fair in Lisbon Art.He is represented in numerous public and private collections with emphasis onthe collection Ariane de Rothschild Banque Privée, Alcatel – Lucent, Portugal.Sousa Machado, Ferreira da Costa & Associados – Sociedade de Advogados, Lisbon. Today is represented by Galeria Toulouse (Tac) in Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte in Gallery Belizário Brazil.”

Because imaging is not just about photography, and due to my graphic design background, I wanted to leave here a brief intro, as well as homage to one of my favorite graphic design companies and the one that influenced most of my visual taste. The Designers Republic, from UK.

I first had contact with their work in 1995, i was still 12 or 13, when the first WipeOut, for Playstation one, got out. Never before I’ve seen such attention to detail, at so many levels, put into a video game. The visual appeal of the game was impressive, and everything was studied, including all the teams logos, outdoors publicity in-game, the mind-blowing soundtrack, etc. In fact, it was the first ever video game to feature in-game adds from major companies such as Red Bull, and a soundtrack with names such as The Prodigy, Chemical Brothers, The Future Sound of London, Leftfield, etc

Back then of course i didn’t even know what graphic design was, and only almost 10 years later i came to learn about The Designers Republic’s part on that and others projects, when i was taking my degree in Communications Design at UALG College, in Faro, Portugal.

Their work was of great influence to me, especially the minimalistic, raw , subversive aspect of their designs.

“The Designers Republic (tDR for short) was a graphic design studio, founded on 14 July 1986 by Ian Anderson, and based in Sheffield, England. It was known for its anti-establishment aesthetics, while simultaneously embracing brash consumerism and the uniform style of corporate brands, such as Orange andCoca-Cola. The studio closed in January 2009, though Anderson has stated that “[The Designers Republic] will go forward after this”.Despite this, Warp Records announced in 2010 that the studio had designed Oversteps and Move of Ten, Autechre‘s tenth album and EP respectively, as well as designing their 1991–2002 EP

The work of tDR had great influence on the development of graphic design, especially in the fields of web and cover design in the electronica scene. The Designers Republic’s works are often playful and bright, and considered Maximum–minimalist, mixing images from Japanese anime and subvertised corporate logos, with a postmodern tendency towards controversial irony, featuring statements like “Work Buy Consume Die”, “Robots Build Robots”, “Customized Terror”, “Buy nothing, pay now”, and “Made In The Designers Republic”. They also celebrated their northern roots with phrases like “Made in the Designers Republic, North of Nowhere” and “SoYo” (referring to Sheffield‘s county of South Yorkshire) — affirming they were not from London‘s design community in Soho.” – Wikipedia

Today I want to introduce you to one of my favorite photographer, Michael Keena.

Born 1953 in England, he currently lives in Seattle, USA and is one of the best (IMO) landscape photographers i know.

The youngest of six children in a working class, Irish-Catholic family. There was certainly no tradition of art among his family at the time. Art had been one of his strongest subjects and he went on to study at the Banbury School of Art in Oxfordshire. Photography was one of many art mediums that he was exposed to as part of the course-work.

Later on, he saw the works of such luminaries as Bill Brandt, Josef Sudek, Eugene Atget, and Alfred Steigliz. They were profoundly impressive and influential. He was particularly entranced by the painters Casper David Friedrich, John Constable and Joseph Turner. After graduating, he did some assisting and printing for an advertising photographer, Anthony Blake. Landscape photography became his hobby and passion which he did in the mornings, evenings and on the weekend when he wasn’t “working”. It was really only when he went to the USA in the mid seventies that he considered the possibility of making a living in the fine arts. There were photography galleries in New York and there seemed to be a higher acceptance of photography as an art form.

Michael Keena produces almost exclusively black and white photographs. They tend to be very intimate, mysterious and at the same time rough and appealing. Here’s his take on the subject:

“I believe black and white is immediately more mysterious because we see in color all the time. It is also more subjective. I think it is quieter and more calm than color. I like to print all my own work and I can interpret black and white very subjectively in the darkroom. It is a personal preference.” – Michael Keena

Honestly, although landscape photography can produce beautiful images, and it does, i was never able to really be mesmerized by it. I don´t know why but for me it lacks some kind of element that tells the story, that grabs my attention. When I see a gorgeous landscape photo I like it, I know it’s beautiful but I don´t find myself much interested in it, because at the end of the day it’s just a photograph of something pretty.

The great exception is the work of Michael Keena, I was truly surrendered by the stunning images he produces, they’re not just landscape photography, definitely not just photos of pretty things. They tell a story, they had a great impact on me. Especially the work he did in Japan, my favorite.

And you can tell his work is something else when you see his list of clients, that include Rolls Royce, Audi, BMW, Adidas, Bank of America, Moet et Chandon, Maserati, Mercedes, etc. I was impressed enough to feel the urge to contact him, so i even sent him an e-mail some years ago, when I was just starting to enter the world of professional photography. He was kind enough to reply and we exchanged some e-mails where he advised me and gave me words of strength and confidence for the journey I then started.

I leave you here with my personal favorite images from Michael Keena. And please take some time to visit his website!

“The creative studio dentsu, teamed up with photographer linden gledhill to create this series of paint sculptures using sound vibrations. the series was part of a campaign for canon’s pixma ink printer brand. the photographs and videos begin by wrapping a membrane around a small speaker. ink drops were placed on this membrane and the speaker was turned on. once it began to vibrate the ink begins to jump up and down. high-speed video cameras and still cameras were used to capture this including circling around the sculptures to see them from all angles. experimenting with different sounds and frequencies created the various pieces.” – Nate for Design Boom | 10.06.10

The Lavazzers is the name of the twentieth edition of the Lavazza Calendar, which in celebration of such an important event reunites 12 of the masters of photography that helped to make the Lavazza Calendar such a success over the years:

They put themselves enthusiastically into play, celebrating their most intimate relationships with the Lavazza coffee through self-portraits. The 12 photographers, just like any closely knit team, were led by the Armando Testa agency, which was in charge of producing also this edition of the Lavazza Calendar. The photographers interpreted themselves in innovative, unusual and imaginative shots.